Known in Arizona for their ultra-conservative politics and well-honed organizational skills, hundreds of Mormons in northeastern Arizona have gone into Good Samaritan mode, helping protect properties, transporting horses and other animals to safe areas, manning phone trees to check on each other’s safety, passing fire information along on Facebook and Twitter, baking cookies for firefighters and opening their homes to strangers as the blaze roars through the White Mountains.

The efficient outpouring of help from members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and others has sometimes overwhelmed emergency officials. And “when the Red Cross feels it's too much, that tells you something about the community, and members of the church,” Mayor Crockett says.